The rotator sleeve rupture - From decompression to commissure, open or arthroscopic, what should be recommended?

Reconstructive surgery of rotator cuff tears tries to restore a stable center of rotation in the shoulder joint. Both the classic technique of open surgery and the arthroscopic technique are employed to reconstruct the rotator cuff. This review tries to answer the question which of both surgical techniques is superior by a review of the literature. The recent literature demonstrates a shorter follow-up period for publications concerning arthroscopic reconstruction (mean 3 years) in comparison to open surgery, where follow-up is in mean 6.2 years. Overall arthroscopic surgery achieves good and excellent results between 68 to 96%, open reconstruction between 77 and 91%. Longevity of reconstructed rotator cuffs especially in large tears seems to be significantly shorter if an arthroscopic technique was used. Several authors mentioned size of tear as a major factor influencing longevity. However in patients treated arthroscopically despite rerupture of the rotor cuff patient's satisfaction and clinical outcome is still very good in short-term follow-up. In case of a complete tear of one tendon of the rotator cuff the arthroscopic technique seems to be superior. If large tears occur (two or three tendons) the open surgical technique may be more reliable with regard to longevity of the repair. For the future it seems necessary to obtain long-term results to be able to compare both principles of reconstruction of the rotator cuff. Furthermore these future studies should include quality of life scores as measurements tools besides the already employed parameters as size of the tear, age at surgery, patient satisfaction and outcome scores.